


she sees

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter)



Series: Tumblr Ficlet Liferaft [8]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, and musings on immortan joe, ruminations on the male gaze, warning for general immortan joe things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 06:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16948386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife
Summary: (for Capable day of wives week, inspired by several meta floating around)





	she sees

In the Citadel she is Object, gazed on by male eyes as if Joe's gaze is possession as much as Joe’s hands. Possession as much as the belt around her hips and the vault door to their rooms. In the Citadel she is a red-headed beacon, and she holds this status with her chin up because at some point she realizes:

If her chin is up, if her eyes are steady, she can gaze, too.

And she does not have the quickness of sight like the Dag does, nor the understanding of sight like the Knowing does, but what she is _is Capable,_ and she _holds_.

She holds, because she takes pride in being unflinching, in gazing unflinchingly, and because of that she’s able to hold long enough to sees things like: 

_The sores on Joe’s body are growing larger, and he’s gone a step slow._

Things like:

_The twist in the war pups faces who has to attend Joe, and their uncertainty._

Things like:

_When people lock something up and they are on one side and something is on the Other, whatever is on the Other side is something they fear._

She thinks this as Warboys snap Joe’s armor into place, she thinks this as the vault door closes between them, she thinks this as she looks down at the hideous belt at her crotch. 

 _On some level, Joe fears me_ , Capable realizes.

The new Imperator that guards them reeks of metal and blood and walks like there are at least one knife and two guns within reach at all times; she walks like her hand is already at your neck and she’s half a second from breaking you.

But she also sees the cloth of this Imperator’s shirt. Capable recognizes that fabric. Capable looks into the Imperator’s eyes, and she recognizes those eyes. She’s seen them in mirrors and on the faces of her sisters. Angharad catches her looking and looks too.

But Angharad, of course, grabs courage and _asks._

(And that is how it starts.)

 

* * *

 

There is one time that Capable wished she didn’t see. She’d looked, and wished she looked away, but she couldn’t.

“She went under the wheels.”

She wished she saw something different. She wished she could say the feral lied.

She the truths she might have said are that the man didn’t realize how strong Angharad was, that he couldn’t know she died, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but.

She couldn’t,

(That is how it ends.)

she couldn’t.

 

* * *

 

Capable goes to take lookout. It is something she knows well how to do, useless though it is for something like saving Angharad. The horizon, though wide, suffocates her. But she holds her gaze on it. She holds her chin steady, and her tears in.

But why then, does it sound like someone’s crying?

She turns around and flinches at the Warboy, but he appeares curled up in pain. Harmless.

This is what she sees:

_Someone hurting._

The Warboy starts hurting himself more and she wants him to stop, and she mirrors herself into a place to listen because this is what she also sees:

_Someone who needed a person to listen._

So she listens. She listens for long enough that he runs dry and then he starts listening too until she runs out of words. The others have enough words, like the murmur of the stars that they watch, and the scream of the salt as it races by, and then that not-muzzled finds some words too.

And the Warboy, Nux, he echoes the words. But quietly.

And when he finally asked for Witness, he said that quietly too.

But Capable sees him, she didn’t need to hear him to know him; and she watches with jaw firm, holding. Curled up fingers brought to her chest, holding.

(This is how it begins again.)

When they arrive at the Citadel, Capable sees the white-bodied Warpups lining the tops of the lifts. She sees how as Joe fell and Furiosa stumbled upright, they cheered her name. 

She thinks about locks and sees how their white paint is one, too. She thinks about locks and how War is one gigantic lock, keeping everyone apart. Capable thinks it’s time to dismantle it.

She sees a lot of listening in her future, but her eyes are steady, her chin is up, and she will hold.


End file.
